Epic Poetry in Ancient Greece and Rome

In this course students will become acquainted with the central epic poems of ancient Greece and Rome, reading selections from Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey), Hesiod (Works and Days and the Theogony), Apollonius Rhodius (Argonautica), Vergil (Aeneid) and Ovid (Metamorphoses). During the course we will survey the history of this genre and examine its cultural and poetical characteristics. Concurrently, we will explore how the epic poems under discussion correspond with the cultural and literary reality in which they were created, and examine their contemporaneous reception.

The course requires no previous knowledge of Classical literature.

Course Requirements: full attendance and active participation; reading assignments 30%; final exam 70%.